


Blood and Snow

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Alan uses a lot of medical terms, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Doesn't follow some lore about these creatures, F/M, I invented a lot of my own myth behind this, Magical Racism, Magical slurs, Vampire Sharpes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 16:27:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13275366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: AU where the Sharpes are vampires blood-tied to a house, Edie is half-Fae with the Second Sight, and Alan is a werewolf and that’s why he never trusted the Sharpes.





	Blood and Snow

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heart's Blood](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5516387) by [Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/Gorgeous%20Nerd). 



> Rewatched Crimson Peak and realized how obsessed with it I was, and how much I wanted it to have had even more supernatural elements. This literally got written because I wondered why Alan, a trained medical doctor, would pull out a blade stabbed into an area where you don’t want to lose pressure on blood flow. And then it occurred to me that a valid reason to do that would be if the blade was poisoned, but my brain decided instead that “he’s a werewolf and it was silver” after reading Heart’s Blood by Gorgeous Nerd.

The bloodsucker must have wrapped the handle of a silver blade with cloth so it wouldn’t burn her. She must have still been in agony, though, having it so close to herself this whole time. He has to admire her a little bit, since he’s had that blade in him for maybe a whole five seconds and he feels like he’s as cold as the wind outside. He has to get it out or it’s going to kill him.

Logically he should leave the blade where it is. He’s not sure if it damaged the brachial artery, and if it did he’ll bleed out in minutes, because even his body’s incredibly fast healing isn’t going to help him now. Werewolves and silver really don’t mix, and that isn’t something they teach you in medical school. It’s something you learn when your younger sister, in a fit of passion, stabs you in the hand with Mother’s fancy silver at a formal dinner and you start choking and bleeding all over the good tablecloth. He yanks out the blade and hopes that was the right decision.

This isn’t the first time he’s hated the family curse. It’s passed down the McMichael line like hemophilia spreads, with only one woman in a century being born a werecreature, but almost every man who’s a direct descendant of Charles, his almost-forgotten ancestor who angered some witch by backing out on a deal with her he made to save his wife. She cursed him not only with extreme loyalty and an inability to ever break promises, but with the wolf lurking beneath the skin.

Alan thinks it’s amusing when people think they know what werewolves are like. He’s heard the scary stories told in bars when men have had a little too much to drink, and for some reason those stories were twice as common in England. He’s heard tales of monstrous creatures ten or twelve feet tall, who on nights when the full moon rises become rampaging killers. He always wondered what they’d think if they knew there was one of their horrifying monsters sitting next to them having a pint at the bar.   

The bloodsuckers follow him to the door. He doesn’t dare leave; if he does he’ll never make it back to the town. Werewolves are stronger and tougher than humans, but definitely not immortal. Then the bloodsucker man picks up that same knife, even though he jumps like he’s accidentally touched the silver. Then he stabs the blade at Alan’s chest. It’s half-hearted enough that Alan can grab his arm and redirect the blade to his side rather than his heart.

Once was bad enough, twice might kill him even though he made sure the knife didn’t hit anything vital. There’s enough silver in his blood now to make him feel like he’s freezing to death. Or is that the wind? Or the snow he’s laying crumpled up in next to the door, like a stray dog someone hit with a carriage? Another part of the werewolf myth people get wrong. They think silver burns, when in reality it freezes. It burns vampires because they are creatures of darkness, to whom light and heat are things to avoid. But flesh-and-blood werewolves, with warm bodies and warmer hearts, are killed by cold.

The feeling is so overpowering he barely notices when the bloodsuckers pick him up with their freakish otherworldly strength and drag him down to the basement, tossing him on his side in a puddle of red clay and clamping his hand into some sort of bear-trap like mechanism that feels like there are tiny bits of silver on the teeth. He didn’t expect better; the vampires treat werecreatures like actual animals.

He can’t help but wonder sometimes if Edie treats him the way she does because all she sees is the lost puppy, the person who lives every day with a curse that would make most of the people around him shun him if they knew the truth.

It isn’t like she doesn’t have her own secrets. He trusted Edie with his only after she confessed to him that she herself was half-Fae. Her mother, exiled from her family for loving a human man, sickened and died when she was unable to return to her people for their rites of spring that refresh their spirits and keep them youthful and immortal. Edie herself is much hardier, taking after her father, although he has noticed that she becomes more morose and is prone to illnesses in winter. And like many Fae half-bloods, she possesses the second sight. She can see the Other Side, as she calls it, where the dead who are cursed, half-underworld creatures, or otherwise trapped and doomed to wander Earth appear. She discovered the gift when she saw her mother’s spirit come to her after the funeral. She was so afraid that the next day she told Alan what she saw. His family had already told him enough about the Fae that he knew what she was. And because she gave him her trust, he could see she could be relied on. And in turn he trusted her. She was so young that she didn’t yet fear the monster society believed a werewolf was.

Alan has lived his whole life hiding. Anyone who knew his secret would use it to either make his life a living hell or to have him killed. The humans, the Fae, and the vampires all hate werecreatures. He’s been found before, and he has the scars to remind him. Humans can’t leave scars on an underworld creature, but other creatures can. Fae blades are a nasty thing to encounter. And so, apparently, are Vampire knives.

He’s trying to ignore the shallow slashes the bloodsucker is making across his chest. She pulls the knife back and lets a single drop of blood fall to the clay. The clay almost looks redder.

“Tempting. But mongrel blood tastes like filth. Your little Fae friend, on the other hand, she will be better than honey.” The creature licks her lips, and he snarls. He wants to make her bleed, see how she likes it.

 “You’re never going to get her blood.” He knows it’s an empty claim. But for some reason it doesn’t burn in his throat and choke him like lies he tells do. There’s the faintest flicker of hope that maybe this curse knows something he doesn’t. Then that icy knife digs in again.

“When we saw you, mongrel, we knew it would be necessary to make other arrangements,” the bloodsucker purrs viciously. “We were prepared to move on altogether when Thomas spotted the Fae girl. Her blood will keep us alive for decades, not just years.” He doesn’t understand. Fae blood is pure light and energy. It should burn a vampire alive.

Maybe the bloodsucker can read his thoughts, because she leans in a little closer and digs the blade back into his shoulder. He barely keeps himself from whimpering like a kicked puppy. “Of course, we had to make some…alterations…to her blood first. But the sweet dear is so trusting, she drank whatever I gave her. And soon, she will be prepared for our feast. And then we will be strong, stronger than your kind at last, and we will wipe you mongrels from the earth and cleanse it for the children of night.” She buries the blade in his leg and leaves. He barely has enough strength to pull it out before he curls into a small ball of misery.

He feels like he’s going to die. He’s been too long here in the cold and dark. His wounds won’t close, not with the silver in his blood, and he doesn’t have any of the cures he learned to make while in England. Old werewolf lore was useful for more than a good laugh. He wanted to use his medical practice to help werewolves struggling to cope with the ways trying to hide and live a normal life could damage them, or the injuries no human doctor could even understand, let alone cure. But some doctor he’d be when he can’t even fix himself. If he still had his bag…there was enough of what he would need, and what he needs to help Edie.

He didn’t think this could get much worse. And then it does when the bloodsucker’s freak brother comes down the stairs. Alan didn’t think he could hate anyone more than he hated that vampire woman, but he was wrong. This man lied to his Edie and he’s using her. He pretended to be everything Edie wanted and loved. He’s broken Alan’s best friend’s heart, and all Alan wants to do is end him.

“Haven’t you people done enough? What else are you going to do to me?” He snarls, dragging himself to a sitting position so he doesn’t look quite so pathetic. There’s certainly a lot more he can think they might be able to torture him with. He just really hopes they’re not going to drag Edie down here and drink her dry in front of him. He wouldn’t put something that sadistic past these bloodthirsty freaks.

“I don’t want to hurt you, mongrel…Alan.” The bloodsucker corrects himself, glancing down like he’s ashamed of his words. But Alan knows better than to trust these freaks and their tricks. They lie and they pretend to get people to like them. They fooled Edie, with her sweet trusting nature. But they didn’t fool Alan then, and they can’t do it now. A wolf can smell out a vampire any day. And even better, that curse his family has to keep promises also means they can tell when people are going to break theirs. He knew the Sharpes were up to no good when Eunice introduced them to him. And he tried to warn Edie away. But that Fae blood has as much wild stubbornness as beauty, and she wouldn’t listen. Now look where it got them.

“Why don’t you walk out of here before I tear you apart?” Honestly Alan doesn’t think he can stand up. And even if he could he’d never be able to reach the bloodsucker, not with his hand in the freak’s bizarre spiked trap. He’s heard that vampires are inventive and mechanical geniuses, and in this case at least it holds true.

“I didn’t kill you. I could have.”

“Well, that wasn’t from the goodness of your heart. You did it so your sadistic sister could have her fun torturing me.” He would have preferred the knife through his heart.

“No!” The bloodsucker’s calm mask cracks a little, and he looks years younger. Young and afraid and hopeless. “I want you to help Edith. I want you to help me get her out of here. I can’t leave this place. My sister and I are bloodbound to it and each other. The only way we can leave is together. I cannot save Edith, but you can.”

“Why should I believe a word you say, bloodsucker? A vampire’s promise is worthless.”

“Because I love her. And a vampire’s love is unending.” The bloodsucker kneels in front of Alan, knees sinking in the blood red clay. “She is my soulmate. Save her.” And Alan can hear the truth in his words.

“I need my bag. The one I brought with me. Where is it?”

“My sister has it. I’ll bring it to you.” He turns and runs up the steps. Alan collapses with the whimper he’s been holding back. This has to work or everyone’s going to die.

It feels like forever before the bloodsucker comes back. Thomas drops the bag in front of Alan, close enough for him to reach it. “If I let you out of this, will you promise not to kill me?”

“Why should I do that, bloodsucker?” He may believe the vampire loves Edie, but that doesn’t mean the guy gets a free pass.

"Because I can lead you to Edith. I know this house. You might run into my sister before you find Edith.” Alan can’t argue with that. Thomas releases the trap holding Alan’s hand, and he winces as the silver releases him. He digs through the bag until he finds the jar, which still feels warm in spite of the four-hour trek through the snow to get to Allerdale. He smears the paste inside over the gashes and stabs freezing him from the inside out.

It’s a relief to feel the wounds start closing. He isn’t any warmer, but that’s to be expected when his clothes are soaked from snow and mud, and he’s in a hole in the ground in a vampire lair, but he feels a little more like himself. Which is good, because he needs to shift. It’ll be easier to make it through the house in his shifted form. His clothes are ruined already, it’s not like he cares that he’s going to need to dump them.

They call him a werewolf only because he’s a basically canine werecreature. In reality, when he shifts, he’s a cross between a wolf and a golden retriever. The only wolfish features he has are longer fangs than a dog should have, and one ear that stands up instead of flopping over. Thomas flinches when he sees Alan’s canine form. Thousands of years of prejudice aren’t easy to get over. They hurry through the halls until they reach a landing of a rickety staircase. Thomas stops. “Edith is that way. You can go alone from here.”

Alan cocks his head, the closest he can come to asking questions when he’s shifted.

“You find Edith. I’ll distract my sister.” Thomas looks sad. “I will do whatever is necessary to stop her. If she dies, so will I. Tell Edith I loved her. As truly as she can ever be loved.” Alan wonders if vampire soulmates are as strong as wolf pack bonds. He thinks otherwise.

He follows her scent to a locked door. He doesn’t know if she locked herself in or if the bloodsucker did it. It doesn’t matter. In a few more moments, the door is on the ground. Edie screams, then stops. She knows what he looks like shifted. He hopes her leg has healed enough to walk on. He twitches his head to the door, and she nods. She’s prepared to get out too. No matter how she felt about that vampire, she knows the truth now.

Whatever Thomas has done to stop his sister, it’s working. Alan and Edie make it through the house undisturbed. But the house itself is screaming. The beams are twisting, and the moths are flying in swarms. But none of it touches them. Alan remembers what Thomas said about him and his sister being bound to the house, and he wonders if this is the bloodsucker’s way of protecting them.

They’re outside the gates when the loudest human scream Alan has ever heard echoes from the house. It’s ear splitting for someone with animal senses, and Alan feels himself shifting back almost without his own intent. This is unbearable. Even Edie is wincing and covering her ears. The whole house suddenly collapses, and a spray of red clay flies up like blood from an arterial wound. Alan knows what that means. The Sharpes are gone, the house they were blood-bound to destroyed forever.

Edie lays her coat over him, and he suddenly realizes he was laying at her feet in the snow, naked. Some rescue this turned out to be. She bends down and looks him in the eyes. “Are you hurt?”

“Are you?”

“Nothing that will not heal. Are…are they gone?”

“Yes.” He feels a bit guilty. He doesn’t want to tell her what Thomas said. But he made a promise. He can’t break it. “Edie, he did love you. He saved us.”

Her eyes, so much larger than they should be, looking more Fae than he’s ever seen her, are too shiny. She misses the bloodsucker, and Fae love as deeply as vampires. But then the stubborn, strong humanness draws her back a little straighter, and she smiles at him. “So did you. Let’s go home, Alan.”


End file.
